Tag Archives: what not to do

Overcoming your mental state generally means you have to change what’s going on around you, and some of us are excellent at doing that. I’ve proven my skills at overcoming adversity — to myself.

I think they’re looking for the Funny. From picturephoto113.blogspot.com

But sometimes life can’t be changed, and it’s that immobility of circumstance that forces the mood to not just stick around but fester.

These days, I’m sort of keeping a lid on things, but I’m not myself.

I’ve been pretty much trapped at home for a month, due to sickness and the resulting finances that come with. I’m doing the watching-TV crap, I’m freaking out internally about certain things I don’t want to share with you, and there’s a lot going through my mind — but I’m too tired to get them done, and pushing could render me stuck in illness for a longer period.

It’s the original Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t scenario.

In the long-term, I think this illness will have brought great and lasting change by way of goals and lifestyle choices I’ve adopted after great isolation and reflection for several weeks. In the short term, however, it’s a really fucking hard place to be.

I’m tired. I’m tired ALL the time. And now I’m getting angry about being so tired. What, knocking me on my ass for a month hasn’t been enough? Aren’t we DONE yet?

See, unlike most people who get angry about getting sick, I’m that rare person who really DID succeed in making major life changes, lost 70 pounds, was on track for losing weight again, etc. I did all that so I could STOP being sick.

Instead, I’m not just sick, but I’ve got this stupid fucking pneumonia, something that knocks the stuffing out of people for weeks and months. I’m sicker than I’ve been in nearly a decade — a decade that was filled with chronic injury — and it’s PISSINGMEOFF.

And I’m scared.

I hate being scared.

But I’m scared. I thank god I’m at least in Canada when things go sideways like this.

And while life goes sideways, there’s still the digital world around us. Facebook, Twitter, blah, blah, blah. There are friends and there are followers, but few of them will be there when shit lands and lands hard.

The rest? I’m a dancing puppet, at best, is how it feels sometimes.

There are those who get all depressed when they lose friends during adversity. Me, I woke up to that reality a long time ago. I’ve been left and I’ve left others. It’s what we do.

We CAN’T be there for everyone. We pick those we can give of ourselves to, those we feel compassion and kindness toward. We have to pick our battles — and who we’ll go to battle on behalf of. It can’t be everyone. That’s just simple truth.

When it comes to Twitter, etc, I’ll unfollow people because they’re too depressive or needy or I’m-a-victim. I can’t read that every day. They might take it personally, but, you know what? We gotta do what WE got to do to get through life. I understand that.

So, if you’re some follower from Twitter who’s all disappointed because my Funny decided to take leave of me weeks ago, then fine. Be disappointed.

But don’t fucking tell ME you’re disappointed. Don’t think YOU’RE entitled to Happy-Happy Joy-Joy from me when I can’t even dig it up for myself. Who the hell are you that you think it’s about you?

Hey, I miss my Funny. I’d like to offer a reward if it’s found and returned to me, okay? It doesn’t WORK like that. I can’t go, “Here, Funny-Funny-Funny, c’mon, Funny-Funny!” and expect it to pounce out of the shadows like a dog being beckoned by its owner with a bone in-hand.

But tomorrow I won’t be jumping off a cliff or sticking my head in an oven. I’m not that far gone. I’m barely far gone at all. Instead, I’m methodical and just holding on as I hope to come back to myself, and I figure out where I’m at and how to get past it. I’m not concerned about entertaining YOU or making anyone laugh. You’re the least of my concerns.

I never unfollow the folks on my list who are going through tough times like chemo or other things that really beat you down over the long, long, long term. I admire them for at least keeping an even keel. They may talk of their disease and how tough it gets, but I can relate, and it’s a constant reminder of just how hard life can be sometimes.

I’ve been there in the past — month after month after month of illness or injury, where life just kicks the shit out of you and merely being able to drag your ass through it is an accomplishment.

I know I’m not there now. I’m just in an arduous place and it’ll pass soon.

On the upside, I’ve improved my diet, lost 10 pounds, met a weight goal, made my minimum bill payments, and have enough food in the fridge for a week.

If that’s all I can manage right now, fucking awesome. GO, ME. SERIOUSLY: Go, me! YEAH. Soon, I’ll feel like myself again. For now, getting by is good enough.

Yesterday a local Vancouver paper asked a question on its Facebook page: “Do you think more could be done to combat homophobia?”

In the ensuing comments, a White Pride freak — who I’m really fucking wanting to identify by name here but don’t feel like dealing with the legal hassle as a little blogger girl — put some very, very hateful anti-gay comments.

I wouldn’t call his statements “homophobia” because it was too hate-fuelled to be a mere ambivalence toward gays. White Pride Freak would rather live in a world where they didn’t exist, and it sounded like “by any means necessary”.

The aftermath of WPF’s comments were pretty routine — a few people like me distancing themselves from the “white” part of his comments that smears us by inclusion — and a lot of people laughing it off with “This guy can’t be real” reactions.

The fencepost upon which gay man Matthew Shepard was beaten & left to die.

YES.

YES, he can be real. YES, he can be dangerous. YES, he can be in the house next door.

Someone commented to me that it didn’t seem possible a dude like that could live north of Raleigh or west of Calgary.

YES. It’s not only possible, but it’s real.

We’ve had gay-bashing incidents of late here in uber-liberal Vancouver — by other minorities!

Hey, let’s keep the wagon wheel of hate rolling.

By saying these guys can’t be real, we’re avoiding truth. We’re ducking the reality that hatred fuels much of what goes on in our world — whether it’s women’s centres being bombed, Middle Eastern women being stoned for adultery, gays being bashed for holding hands on the street, or prejudices rising everywhere daily, never mind national strife like Palestine-v-Israel, or Iran spouting rhetoric.

Hatred’s out there, man. Don’t think otherwise.

The Georgia Straight’s Facebook moderator decided it prudent to delete the offensive comments on this particular thread. I disagree. My reply comment:

By a) responding with “haw-haw, he can’t be real” and b) knee-jerk “how dare you” replies, then deleting his words, we’re pulling the wool over allour eyes.

We say “HEY, THERE’S A REALPROBLEMOUTTHERE” about hatred or racism, but then we sanitize the web so no feelings get hurt.

Let’s hurt some feelings! Let’s see these bastards for who they are! Let their names be known! Let their evidence stay up so we can point and say THATISNOTRIGHT, LET’S FIGHTTHAT, LET’S PROVEHIMWRONG.

Sure, a bunch of people got all bent outta shape reading that kind of hate speech — but the mentality of “Well, if it’d been worded more politely, it’d be okay and we could ‘dialogue’ ” is just ridiculous!

IT’S HATE. Let’s see it for what it is.

Let the world see that it’s still out there, regardless of our pretty little fast-food metrosexual ever-so-aesthetic iPoddy 21st century.

Then let’s fight back and end that hate where it lives. END it, not delete it.

From Wikipedia’s “lynching” page. The lynching of Laura Nelson in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1911; she had tried to protect her son, who was lynched together with her.

Deleting the thread has all the brilliance of when a Canadian bookstore chain decided it would never, ever stock nor order Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Right, because ignoring the book the first time worked out so well for us.

KNOWTHYENEMY.

If we want to overcome hatred, racism, homophobia, elitism, all of it, then we need to know exactly what their thoughts are so we can break those down.

This is the internet — the home of anonymity, the tool of free speech, the widest platform for idea-expressing ever invented.

But every motherfucking site has a moderator who goes and deletes the hate, hiding the nasty fuckers that we need exposed.

Deep down inside, we all know cruel people are out there, and we know they’re cowards who hide real, real good.

Thus it’s become easier when we hide them too, and go on with our lovely little domesticated modern lives. God forbid our routines get injected with realism.

These people are real.

They live where you are.

They’re more marginalized and angrier than ever.

And we’re giving them a pass by letting them say what they say, then deleting it. So, then they run back to their little web microcosms and fester with their continuing hate spiel, palling with their little hatin’ buddies, all the while leaving us blissfully ignorant that hate-filled fucks like them are more prevalent than we’d like to think.

Stop protecting us, website moderators.

Our ignorance will not inspire their change. We need all the good peoples in on this fight.

We have helmet laws here in British Columbia. Even if we didn’t, I’d be wearing mine.

One saved my life. And still I’m different than I used to be.

When I saw this article come up on Twitter, I got pretty choked about it. I started thinking of the friends I’ve seen riding without a helmet — whether for a block or in the thick of city traffic with bad weather — and I found myself clenching my teeth in frustration.

Head injuries are horrible.

They change you forever.

They affect you emotionally, spiritually, physically.

And I’ve had far too much personal experience with head injuries to let the topic of helmets disappear easily into the cybernight without some commentary.

My personal experience, with just people my age?

Well, personally, I almost died. Had I not been wearing a helmet, I would have died when I somersaulted off my scooter and hit the pavement at Columbia and 2nd back on August 29th, 2004.

I spent the next year trying to get back to who I was while I laboured without a diagnosis on my head (because judgment is the first thing to go; you can’t be objective about yourself and you don’t think about the reasoning behind why you’re such a “fuck up” now; it becomes a self-esteem and time/skill-management thing when it should really be a head-injury thing).

I changed as an employee — it cost me my job security and made me first on chopping block when needed lay-offs came rolling around. (We didn’t know then that it was my brain-bouncing that was the cause of my production getting slower and less sharp.)

That started two years of job insecurity as I hopped around the employment world, learning that I couldn’t handle stress like I used to anymore, and realizing I couldn’t learn new skills or organize as well as I once could.

Experience 2 with head injuries is my brother. Hit by a Chevy Suburban, he spent 5 days in a coma in late 2005 and has never been the same person since. He takes longer to understand things, has a hard time processing his emotions, is more inclined to depression, and it’s all a result of the severe head injury he took — since he had another one within 6 months of the first.

Experience 3 with head injuries was a beloved old friend, in 2008, just 34 years old, who was out adventuring with friends just 9 days after the birth of his little baby girl. His ATV tipped, crushing his head on rocks, and leaving him washing down the fast river, where he drowned and died — orphaning that beautiful baby girl in her first two weeks of life.

Yes, head injuries are bad.

So, when I see brilliant, fantastic friends hopping on their bikes in their almost-hipsterness, cruising around town without their helmets, it fucking kills me.

Know what a head injury feels like?

Take equal parts of STUPID, ANGRY, and CONFUSED, throw them into a martini shaker and mix liberally with IMPULSECONTROLISSUES and BADJUDGMENT and you’ll have the start of what you’re after.

Now, take that horrible mood cocktail and spread it over your days — 24/7, 365.

I spent a year at a loss about what I felt, what I needed, where I wanted to go, how to get there. I’m lucky, I’m a writer, and somehow through the act of writing EVERYSINGLEDAY for a year, I managed to get my brain to finally start firing again.

I don’t even remember ANY of the first 6 months except a Pocky Incident and being unhappy about a hamburger while watching World Cup Hockey.

I’ve never been as good at learning things as I used to be, I need more guidance and have more questions, but I’m smarter than the average person so I get it together sooner or later on new tasks, but only after a lot of frustration.

I’m still smart as hell, no doubt, but I forget large chunks of my life.

Large chunks.

And my mother’s dead.

And some of the chunks are of her. When death rolls around with your loved ones, memories are all you’ve got left, and your head is all you got to protect that with.

It kills me, you know. Just kills me.

When you’re a writer, your memory is your most valuable tool. I’ve lost a lot of mine. My years are a hazy blur when they used to have crystal clarity to them.

I have to live the rest of my life with the very real knowledge that head injuries are like a good savings plan — they compound infinitely.

Every time I hit my head, I run the risk of making myself less of who I was.

Every time my noggin bumps a doorframe or something, a shock of fear runs through me.

You parents failing to put helmets on your kids, I’d be all right with calling that child abuse, given what I know has changed in my life from my head injury.

Protect your children. It’s your job. It’s the law.

I can’t tell you how much I wish I could have that day I almost died back. How much I could undo the stupidity that led me to thinking I should be on my scooter that morning.

I just can’t tell you.

Most people who know me would never think I’d had a head injury. I’ve got razor-sharp wit, keen conversational abilities, and I’m sly as the day is long.

But they’d be wrong. I’m different. Just in little ways I can work around.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t anger me still that I’m different now.

I used to test at Mensa levels on IQ tests, you know. Between 145 and 170, depending on the day, over the years. “Smart” is a commodity one can’t afford to trade on, not via head injuries or anything else.

Really, it’s not that the head injury takes you out of the game — because it doesn’t. That’s kinda part of the problem — you become the “walking wounded” afterwards.

You go through life okay enough — you look fine, everyone thinks you can do your job, they think you’re as normal as can be. But because you’re rendered some lesser part of yourself as a result of the changes, you’re not even aware of how much you’ve changed — you’re in a fog, a daze, so you can’t say “Hey, something’s off here.”

And because you’re not defending or explaining yourself, those around you think you’re just in some depressive funk and that you need to “shake it off.”

But you can’t.

You hit your brain and you have a boo-boo that can’t be bandaged, doesn’t get air, never sees the sun, and can’t be displayed to others. You’ve seen how long a bruise on your leg takes to heal? What about if it’s under a skull, and all the bruised areas affect how synapses and thoughts and neuro-body-controls occur?

It was two years after my head injury that I finally realized how much I had changed, and only because I was seeing the same stuff happening to my brother with his head damage. A strangely consistent downward spiral in his life mirrored the one that had been happening to me.

Finally, I went to see a shrink I’d been to in the past, who’d had muchos experience in head injuries, and I learned what was going on inside was all part of the healing journey a head injury victim usually takes.

I had a helmet on and I’ve luckily lived to tell my story, even though I’m changed and will probably always have to live with the legacy of that day in small ways.

In fact, everyone I’ve written about here today was wearing a helmet, and yet, look at our stories.

Put your fucking helmet on.

Get over your haircut. Get over yourself.

If not for your own life and the hell it will likely be if you survive a head injury and have to live with it for the remainder of your life, then at least wear it so my fucking tax dollars can go somewhere more intelligent than dealing with your dumb-ass negligence.

Please.

__________________________________

Think you might’ve had a head injury and wonder what the indicators are? Check here.The New York Times has a good cheat-sheet HERE on what to do or look for after a head injury has first been suffered — please read it NOW, not when you need it. Remember how quickly Natasha Richardson died from a ski fall? Yeah. Know your shit.

I’m still in a mad spiral as I sort out everything to do with my loan, and then I can slowly segue back to mostly-broke time-on-her-hands Steff that brings you tons to read. It’s been WEEKS since I’ve been able to sit at my writing desk to write for you, but I think the day is nigh. I miss my desk, I write nowhere like I write at my desk!

My new bed seems to be incredible. I think I never bought the right bed to begin with last time, and ten years of sleeping on it just destroyed me. Four NIGHTS into my new bed and the difference in my back is profound.

It’s easy when you’ve been a crash-test dummy like me in four MVAs, thrown from a scooter, thrown off a motorbike, and fallen down a flight of stairs, to dismiss bodily creaks and groans as just collateral damage from a life lived on the wild side of the “klutz” divide, but only four days in it’s obvious I’ve given my inner Little Miss Disaster too much credit. Really, my bed just sucked. Continue reading →

You know, this whole recovering-Catholic thing plays so badly with writing any kind of exposés about my own sex life.

I feel horribly guilty, like a first-class cunt, for having posted my thingie about my “underwhelming weekend sex” yesterday. But then I got to thinking about it.

First, I placed an ad for sex. I made it very, very plain that I was looking for someone who was a talented, attentive lover with brains. But the sex, I said, was the whole point. I was very, very clear about this. Not about having a relationship, having a boyfriend, bringing someone to staff parties, or being a couple. Sex, sex, sex. And not even one-time sex. Someone who wanted a good shagging and often, that’s what I wanted. And I mentioned I had two very key things: ample libido, and killer endurance.

Second, the guy read my blog. He knew I wasn’t just some average chick who was happy to play around for five minutes. I mean, I write a sex blog! If a guy’s going to bring his “A” game out to play with anyone, wouldn’t that someone compute to be someone they knew to be into quality shagging, someone who ran an ad seeking quality shagging?

Third, if it was underwhelming sex but he’d tried in ANYOTHERAREA — intimacy, cudding, conversation — afterwards, I’d have given him a pass. Because he was cute and nice and I’m a sucker that way. But, nothing.

Fourth, if you’re going to take the risk of having casual sex, shouldn’t you really indulge in the experience? I mean, you’re taking a shot at the whole “possible transmission of STDs” gamble, so HAVESEX, right?

Fifth, it really is for the greater good. I would like to think that, if I’ve stopped one guy from doing the foreplay-only-as-long-as-necessary, get-off, and-forget-about-her kind of sex I had on the weekend, then I feel I’ve done a good service.

Because, whether it’s initiating what’s hoped to be an ongoing casual sex relationship, just a here-and-now shag, or something more, one of the most important things about sex is to feel appreciated — and spent.

If you don’t even feel appreciated at the end, not spent, and just used, and not even in a good way, then why even go there?

Honestly, I’ve probably felt more used out of this experience than I have since I was in my early 20s. Used, absolutely. And that, friends, just isn’t fair.

So perhaps we’re at a more honest place about why I’m so pissed about that experience. Because whatever else my ad might’ve said I wanted, getting used wasn’t one of them.

(Now, had I been used for great sex… Well, y’know, that’s something I might make an allowance for. )Don’t forget, I’m on Twitter now. Come have a boo.

Yesterday, I made rather not-so-subtle reference to the fact that I finally got laid last weekend in this posting. I wasn’t going to say anything, really, because I was decidedly underwhelmed by the experience.

But then, you know, I thought, “It’s for the greater good! People must know!” So, without getting into detail here, let’s talk about it again.

I was quite looking forward to this particular fellow and thought it would be great because he made it sound like “play” was something he enjoyed.

For a number of reasons, that wasn’t the case. DP commented on yesterday’s posting to kind of defend the honour of men all over this fair planet. He said, more or less, that men invariably suck the first time they’re sleeping with someone new.

Not a newsflash. Every guy I’ve been with has been pretty disappointing penetration-wise on the first try. I generally try to tell myself it’s a compliment, they’re just so EAGER that they have no control. Which, of course, is pretty often the case.

So I’ll never judge a guy on the sex itself, not the first time. No, I take other things into consideration. Does the kissing wow me? How was foreplay? Was it rushed and done only as a means of instigating sex, or was foreplay itself enjoyed for what it is — play? Was it fun? Was he as thoughtful of me as he should have been? And when it came to AFTER sex — was one orgasm all that mattered to the guy? Did any other affection and after-play take place? Was there even a conversation? Was it fun? Was it about intimacy and play, not just orgasms?

Unfortunately, my weekend encounter failed in every single department.

Here’s a tip, men. When it’s your first time with a woman, do not be a fucking twit and get completely drunk. Why? A), It’s offensive. Let’s see. Fucking me, or getting a hangover, and you choose? B) Your performance when fucking is going to SUCK anyhow, so why are you impeding your performance even more? C) Booze you can buy any day of the week, but these legs opening for you? Priceless.

Now, since I’ve been around the block enough to know that men obviously don’t perform well the first time, I should be able to compare this time to all my other “first time” encounters, right?

Right, and this is the first time I’ve ever, ever been left anywhere near as frustrated as I was when this fella left. And it’s too bad. I wanted to like him. But if all I’ve got to go on is that he got drunk, barely got me off, got himself off as quick as possible, and then never touched me again?

Yeah, failed that mission, pal. And, besides, when it’s the first few times I’ve usually got to push the fellas out the door and fend off a few more kisses and gropes and groans on the way. This was just… so not that. I thought I was being Punk’d.

And you, dear male readers, need to learn not to make the same mistakes. Foreplay and afterplay are where you compensate for your performance. If I’m kissed like there’s no tomorrow, and toyed with in any number of ways that arouses me and/or satisfies me, and inspires me to see the fella again, then I’ll completely forget about the first encounter’s disappointments and only remember how much it set to stage for playtimes to come.

Except this encounter, of course. Pity.

And, believe me, I am disappointed. I wanted to like this fella, but I just haven’t got it in me for drunken fratboy lovers when I’m pushing 35, even if they’re cute, smart, and fun. No. I want men.

Women, what say you? Men, how do you feel like when fellas like this are doing the representin’ for your race?

AFTERTHEFACT: So, upon thinking about this this morning, I realize this posting might sound sexist, as if it’s only men who underwhelm on the first encounter. I, of course, know this isn’t true. So, tomorrow (or Friday) I plan to write about how *I* might underwhelm (and possibly other women) on the first encounter, and why that can’t be expected to accurately reflect the lover I am after that first night. So, check back later this week for that little ditty.

And don’t forget, you can follow me on Twitter now.
[Note: So I did a Google search for “unsatisfying sex” images, and after scouring 17 pages of results, nothing represents “unsatisfying sex” but god knows if I search for “hard cocks” it’ll be thousands of pages of results. Is this somehow suggestive of the fact that unsatisfying sex is a myth, and hard cocks are over-abundant? Hmm. Yeah, I don’t think so.]

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About Steff

This is my interstellar craft of truth and wit. Buckle up. If you want celebrity gossip, this is not the blog for you. If you want comfortable postings that’ll fill you with happy fuzzy thoughts about the world at large, or self-help guru shit, this is not the blog for you.Read more

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